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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22472701">Connections</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister'>GretchenSinister</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Rise of the Guardians (2012)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Declarations Of Love, Fluff, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 10:21:26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,057</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22472701</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Original Prompt: "So, I havn’t seen this one out there. Yes it is yet another Jack centered prompt.</p><p>So, Jack has been on his own for 300 years, and appears to have gotten a base idea of what he can do with his powers, though obviously not everything considereing he actually /said/ he didn’t know he could do that.<br/>And that got me wondering. How come he didn’t know he could do that?<br/>How did he learn about his powers anyway? Spreading frost and cold seems an unconcious and instinctive/ automatic thing.<br/>And how do kids/ people start learning? Well, by copying others ofcourse.</p><p>So what I’d like to see is Jack stalking people and trying to replycate their abilities.<br/>I don’t really care about who or when, if he fails or succeeds.<br/>Altough pitch’s disappearing in the shadows trick is pretty cool and dramatic &gt;.&gt;...[cut for length]"</p><p>It seems to me that making that bunny out of frost for Jamie was more related to Sandy’s abilities than anything else. Jack tells Sandy about that, in a quiet moment back at the Pole right after Jack becomes a Guardian.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jack Frost/Sanderson Mansnoozie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Cold Gold Short Fics</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Connections</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Originally posted on Tumblr on 11/12/2014.</p><p>Here's the rest of the prompt: "Can be gen and stick to abilities, include hobbies, mennerisms, accents, or find yourself a nice pairing and take it to the bedroom later, it’s up to you &lt;3"</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div class="text post-content">
  <p>“When you were gone,” Jack says, then stops. He takes a deep breath and looks into Sandy’s eyes. Even though Sandy’s back now, he doesn’t like to think about him being gone. For if he was gone, and then he came back, well–doesn’t that mean that there’s something far, far different from Jack behind his golden eyes? Something maybe <em>too</em> different, no matter how much he’d learned from him over the years?<br/>
<br/>
But Sandy’s eyes soften with a smile and he reaches out to place one of his hands on Jack’s own, a hand still small and warm and solid. Jack’s heart pounds, and he wonders if Sandy can hear it in the quiet of this small inner parlor of the Workshop. But he could explain it, if a glittering golden question mark appeared. Sandy’s his friend, and he’d thought he’d lost him, so why shouldn’t his heart pound to have the evidence of touch that he’s really, really here?<br/>
<br/>
“When you were gone,” he says again, and Sandy doesn’t remove his hand, “and I wanted to show Jamie that Bunny was real, I lifted a rabbit out of the windowpane frost, and it hopped around the room for a little bit before it turned into snowflakes.”<br/>
<br/>
Sandy does remove his hand now, to clap excitedly. His smile is wide and his eyes are thoughtful and lively. Symbols that Jack doesn’t recognize flash over his head almost too fast for him to even be sure of that fact. Sandy sees the confusion on his face and slows down, but though Jack can now recognize what the sand forms, he can’t make meaning out of it.<br/>
<br/>
Jack feels his cheeks heat with mortification. What was he thinking? He couldn’t say what he meant, and he can’t understand what Sandy means. <br/>
<br/>
But then, Sandy pauses, nods slowly, and the sand above his head fades away. “That’s amazing! I wouldn’t have expected you to be able to do that at such a young age, especially since it’s not directly related to your powers. Was it spontaneous? Where could you have learned it?” Sandy’s ASL is less fluent than his signs, but Jack can understand it, as he can understand all languages children use. <br/>
<br/>
And Jack also understands that Sandy’s limiting himself to words for him. It’s that thought that makes him less afraid of going on, of saying, “I learned it from you, Sandy. I watched you make dreams whenever I could, how you made them move and live on their own.”<br/>
<br/>
Sandy tilts his head. “That’s not an easy thing to learn.”<br/>
<br/>
Jack wants to take his hands, but then they won’t be able to talk. He hides his own in his sweatshirt pocket instead. “I wasn’t really ready, that night in Jamie’s room. I didn’t know if it was going to work. But I knew that Jamie needed the Guardians, and the Guardians needed Jamie, and that your dreams were so important to everyone…I thought that if I could do the same thing, it might help. And I–” he looks away from Sandy so he won’t let himself be interrupted before he says all of it. “I wanted to see that something like you could do could still exist. Not that I wanted to replace you! I just…”<br/>
<br/>
Sandy touches his wrist. “You wanted to see that the kind of good I did hadn’t been lost?”<br/>
<br/>
Jack nods.<br/>
<br/>
“Thank you,” Sandy signs, mouthing the words at the same time. “I’m glad you’re one of the people I got to come back to. Still, you must have been watching me very closely to have known how to do anything like creating a dream at all.” There’s a bit of mischief in his smile after this, and Jack sees little tiny question marks rising from the end of each spike of Sandy’s hair.<br/>
<br/>
“Oh–I–that is true, Sandy. I watched you creating dreams whenever I could. Even–even before we really met.”<br/>
<br/>
“That time before we met didn’t need to be so long,” Sandy signs, his expression growing more serious. “I would have liked to meet you right away.”<br/>
<br/>
“I was pretty intimidated,” Jack says, feeling himself starting to blush and wanting to look away, but not daring to for fear of missing anything Sandy might say. “You were a Guardian, at the center of all those beautiful golden dreams, and I barely knew my own name. Then again, I’m still pretty intimidated now, because even if we’re both Guardians, you–you came back from the dead, and I still don’t have any idea <em>how</em> and there’s more to you than I ever thought and it was plenty already, tell you what–”<br/>
<br/>
Sandy reaches out and takes both his hands. And maybe this isn’t the time, but maybe it’ll never be the time, and Jack tells himself he shouldn’t be so afraid, after all, he won’t lose Sandy the way he thought he did just a couple days ago–and how can he say nothing, when Sandy’s hands are in his?<br/>
<br/>
“Sandy,” he goes on, “I want you to know that I–I love you.” And now, he does look away. “Maybe I should have waited, and maybe I shouldn’t have said anything, because why not be patient when you’re immortal? And maybe this isn’t something Guardians do. But when I saw you…you made me think that maybe being immortal isn’t the time to be patient after all. So that’s it. You’re my oldest friend, and though I don’t really know what can connect us anymore, or really what did before, I love you.”<br/>
<br/>
Sandy squeezes his hands but doesn’t let go of them, and Jack looks up. Once he’s got Jack’s attention, he releases his hands and signs, “You have a good heart, Jack. That will always connect us. Will you let yourself believe me when I tell you I love you back?”<br/>
<br/>
“Yes, but like–”<br/>
<br/>
Sandy smiles at him and scoots closer on the couch. “I may not like words but I know when I mean them,” he signs, and if he wants to say anything more, he’ll have to switch to sand again, as he cups the back of Jack’s head and pulls him down into a gentle kiss.<br/>
<br/>
But that probably says all that needs to be said at that moment, anyway.</p>
</div>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Tags from Tumblr:</p><p>#these two are such sweeties#North probably walks in on them kissing and just gives them an extra blanket#like it wasn't super expected but no one's really surprised</p></blockquote></div></div>
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